North Korea says prepared to respond to nuclear attack by US in kind; marks founder’s birth

North Korea warned the United States on Saturday to end its “military hysteria” or face retaliation as a US aircraft carrier group steamed towards the region and the reclusive state marked the ‘Day of the Sun’, the 105th birth anniversary of its founding father.
The country’s number two official on Saturday said North Korea was prepared to respond to any nuclear attack by the United States in kind. “We’re prepared to respond to an all-out war with an all-out war and we are ready to hit back with nuclear attacks of our own style against any nuclear attacks,” Choe Ryong-Hae said in a speech at a ceremony before a large military parade started.
Concern has grown since the US Navy fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack. That raised questions about US President Donald Trump’s plans for North Korea, which has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of UN and unilateral sanctions. The North’s warning came as leader Kim Jong Un, looking relaxing relaxed in a dark suit and laughing with aides, oversaw a military parade at Pyongyang’s main Kim Il Sung square, named after his grandfather, on his birth anniversary. Goose-stepping soldiers and marching bands filled the square, next to the Taedonggang River that flows through Pyongyang, in the hazy spring sunshine, followed by tanks, multiple launch rocket systems and other weapons. Single-engine propeller-powered planes flew in a 105 formation overhead.